Minutes and Years
by Hematitebadger
Summary: It's all about the bits and pieces. Fifty themes, fifty sentences; done for the Livejournal 1sentence challenge.


**#01 – Motion**

One of the things Shego loves about her job is that Drakken never stands still; it's a long time before she realizes that half of the time it's because she's pulling him along.

**#02 – Cool**

She strides into the lair on her first day, all sleek grace and smooth confidence, and suddenly he's back in high school, praying for the cool girls to look his way _just once_.

**#03 – Young**

The age difference that had Drakken so worried when he first fell in love with her doesn't seem to enter into Shego's thinking; the way she treats him like one of her young men would be flattering if it weren't so exhausting.

**#04 – Last**

The conversation about their respective dating histories keeps circling too close to the one relationship Drakken will never tell _anyone_ about, until he finally stuns Shego into silence by asking why she's so concerned about his first love when all that really matters is that he wants her to be his last.

**#05 – Wrong**

He shouts, he argues, he bargains, and he cajoles, but it takes giving up his stupid pride before he figures out what he needs to say (and what she needs to hear): "Please come back, Shego; it doesn't feel right doing this without you."

**#06 – Gentle**

It feels just plain _wrong_ to describe anything Shego has ever done as 'gentle,' but on the night when she sits beside his bed for hours, talking softly and stroking his forehead until the fever breaks, no other word feels right.

**#07 – One**

There have been a lot of villains she's worked for in the past, but as far as she's concerned he's the only one who's ever had the right to call himself her boss.

**#08 – Thousand**

At one point he gets it into his head to tally up how many arguments they have in one week; he loses count on Tuesday afternoon around the same time she finds out about it and starts quibbling over his definition of 'argument.'

**#09 – King**

It's a cynical thought even for her, but sometimes Shego turns off the news in disgust and reflects that one good reason to help Drakken take over the world is because he can't possibly screw it up any more than the guys who are already running it.

**#10 – Learn**

She gets in the habit of touching him whenever she can, cupping his chin or toying with his hands or running a finger down his ribcage; when he reacts with confusion she simply shrugs and says that she's still learning him.

**#11 – Blur**

There was a kiss that left him reeling, a whispered suggestion, a mad race to the bed, and past that Drakken's memory of last night begins to run together in a pleasant blur; the look on Shego's face this morning tells him that he's going to _enjoy_ sifting through the details.

**#12 – Wait**

He waits for her to make the first move because he's afraid of pissing her off; she waits for him to make the first move because she's afraid of _scaring_ him off.

**#13 – Change**

Drakken expects a certain period of adjustment now that there's a woman around the lair, but it's really not all bad; the bottleneck in the laundry room and Shego's sharp comments when he lets the dishes pile up on a busy day are a fair price for having someone around who's willing to do half the cleaning and – on rare occasions when she's bored and desperate – actually _talk_ to him during some of his late-night 'puttering around' sessions.

**#14 – Command**

Their chain of command is so ingrained – he gives the orders, she decides whether or not she wants to follow them – that when she starts deferring to him in regards to their public appearances ("I've already _done_ the 'celebrity hero' thing; this one's your turn") he's really not sure how to handle it.

**#15 – Hold**

It's months of friendly movie nights and hours spent together on her couch before he's bold enough to reach over and rest his hand lightly on hers; she pulls away (as he expects) but only long enough to reposition her arm so she can twine her fingers through his more securely.

**#16 – Need**

He hires the strange, caustic young woman because she's competent and clever – and, okay, in some small part because she's _stunning_ – and because there's something behind that proud bearing that tells him she needs this job just as much as he needs her to take it.

**#17 – Vision**

Drakken glowers at her over the neat wire frames of his new reading glasses, and Shego realizes that if he hadn't fixed his original vision problems before they met, it would have taken her a lot less time to figure out that she was attracted to him.

**#18 – Attention**

The day she realizes that the thing he wants most is for someone to listen to him is also the day she realizes that the easiest way to drive him nuts is to pretend _not_ to.

**#19 – Soul**

It's a cruel and terrifying thought for a woman in her profession to have, but Shego sometimes suspects that somewhere, deep, _deep_ down, Drakken has a truly good and noble soul…and that the part of her that fell in love with him first is the part that misses when she used to have one, too.

**#20 – Picture**

Drakken doesn't actually _tell_ his mother they're engaged, just e-mails her a vacation photo where Shego's left hand is visible and waits for the phone to ring.

**#21 – Fool**

"Maybe I'm just not that smart," she snaps during a fight when he peevishly demands to know why she doesn't just _leave_ if he's as useless as she keeps saying he is; his response – silence, then laughter, then a crushing bear hug that's actually kind of _nice_ – is so unexpected that she forgets what she was yelling about in the first place (which she later realizes was probably why he did it, and then she really _does_ feel a little stupid).

**#22 – Mad**

"Mad genius" may not be a recognized mental condition, but when he pulls her close and growls – in a voice that would make her forgive any number of vile puns – that he's madly in love with her, she thinks that he's definitely got _some_ kind of insanity going on.

**#23 – Child**

"I am _not_ robbing the cradle, Mother; she's twenty-seven, for God's sake!"

**#24 – Now**

She'll probably regret this tomorrow – hell, she's mentally scribbling 'regret this' onto her to-do list in between 'pick up dry cleaning' and 'buy stamps' – but right now all that matters is the taste of his lips, the heat of his skin, and the surprising, gentle strength of his hands.

**#25 – Shadow**

When she starts to suggest – mostly through careful body language and stumbling smiles – that she's attracted to him, he balks; he wants this more than anything, but the memory of the chip on her neck and what happened the last time she went after him still looms over him.

**#26 – Goodbye**

Even the way she _leaves_ changes as they get closer; there are actual goodbyes before she gallivants off on a vacation now, and even when she stalks off because he's done something stupid or a 'help wanted' ad is too good an offer to pass up, there's always something hanging in the air behind her that says _I'm coming back_.

**#27 – Hide**

"No wonder you have to hire someone else to do your thieving," she quips when she catches his clumsy attempt to sneak a piece of sesame beef off her plate, but he notices that she doesn't make any move to stop him (although he _doesn't_ notice the way bits of his barbecued pork keep disappearing).

**#28 – Fortune**

"'Your hard work will soon be rewarded,'" he reads, and looks at her expectantly; she makes a "_Tch_!" noise as she cracks open her own cookie and incinerates the paper without reading it: "I make my own fortunes."

**#29 – Safe**

She gives in and nestles against him on the couch, tucking her body under his arm and resting her head on his chest, forcing him to wrap that arm around her, and he suspects that holding her like this for the first time makes him feel safer than it does her.

**#30 – Ghost**

The longer he knows her, the more amazed he is by her ability to float through a room as silently and invisibly as if she's haunting it; her usual presence and personality is such a force of nature that he can't imagine how difficult it must be to turn it off.

**#31 – Book**

She graciously accepts an advance copy of his memoirs, although she insists she's only reading it to make sure he isn't writing lies about her (which it turns out he is; he writes about her like she's the best thing that ever happened to him).

**#32 – Eye**

"It's kinda sexy, actually," she mumbles when she catches him fretting over the new scar under his eye, and she looks so sweetly mortified to have said it that he has to believe she meant it.

**#33 – Never**

She doesn't understand why he seems to think it's tragic that she's never really had her heart broken; he doesn't understand why she _doesn't_ think it's tragic that she's never let anyone get close enough to break it.

**#34 – Sing**

Not that she'll ever tell him, but he really does have a halfway decent voice – his terrible taste in music notwithstanding – and she can think of worse ways to spend her Friday nights than slightly buzzed and listening to mediocre performances… but if he ever tries to get _her_ up on that stage, she's outta there.

**#35 – Sudden**

"You're a very attractive woman," he says without any apparent provocation, and she realizes with great embarrassment that he's figured out that she's still hanging around the lair because her date cancelled on her.

**#36 – Stop**

"_Not one word_," he growls through chattering teeth as they duck under a stand of trees while his homemade weather machine explodes behind them; for once she actually listens and just leans against him, stealing some of his body heat, and waits for the rain to stop.

**#37 – Time**

"You started working here a year ago today," he explains when she stares blankly at the anniversary card; half of her thinks, 'it's _really_ been that long?' while the other half thinks, 'it's _only_ been that long?'

**#38 – Wash**

She's practically vibrating with barely-restrained fury and embarrassment as she sheds her clothing and squeezes into the decontamination shower with him, her voice barely audible over the lab alarms and the rush of water: "If whatever you just spilled doesn't kill you, _I will_."

**#39 – Torn**

It's the jacket in the hovercraft's storage compartment that convinces her to go home after this latest fight, the ragged, torn, moth-eaten thing he insists on keeping around 'for weather emergencies'; the smell of him is something she doesn't think she's ever even _noticed_ before, and now it's making her miss him with an intensity she's not sure she likes.

**#40 – History**

Considering that she has a history of taking liberties with the job, undermining his authority, and ignoring pretty much everything he asks her to do, maybe it's not that surprising when she walks off with his heart without so much as telling him she's done it.

**#41 – Power**

There's a soft growl and a violent glint in her eye, and he backs down from the challenge before the green starts to flicker around her hands; if this is going to get _that_ serious then he'd rather just let her choose the movie.

**#42 – Bother**

He snores, he steals the blankets, he cuddles her way too close, and he wakes up at odd hours, none of which is annoyance enough to keep her from staying the night every time she winds up in his bed.

**#43 – God**

Shego's mother sizes Drakken up the first time she meets him and immediately shakes her head, muttering something about her daughter 'living in sin'; Shego bites her lip to keep from pointing out that if God hasn't already disowned her for years of armed robbery and assorted violence, a little premarital cohabitation is unlikely to be a deal-breaker.

**#44 – Wall**

As one of nature's rant-and-ravers, Drakken never knows how to react when Shego gets really mad; she closes down and walks away, and no matter how loud he gets he can't break through until she lets him.

**#45 – Naked**

She has a way of looking at him sometimes that strips him bare: peels back all his genius, all his accomplishments, all his pride (which he's _earned_, dammit), and leaves nothing but an insecure college dropout who's way out of his depth…and then the slow grin as she runs her hand through his hair promises she'll never tell anyone what she sees, provided he never tells anyone that she _likes_ it.

**#46 – Drive**

"It's a little bit touchy," he starts, and gets no further before she shoulders him aside and grabs the hovercraft's controls with a grin: she taught herself to pilot the Go Jet; this little scooter will be no challenge at all.

**#47 – Harm**

Shego's eldest brother gives Drakken the 'what will happen to you if you hurt my baby sister' speech, and Drakken has to laugh; the 'baby sister' in question is more intimidating than this overgrown dope could ever hope to be (and the fact that he'd rather die than hurt her is too obvious to mention).

**#48 – Precious**

The first 'I love you' tumbles out of her mouth in a rush, surrounded by a flurry of unrelated sentences as if the words themselves are so valuable they can only be delivered covertly and with an armed escort.

**#49 – Hunger**

She wakes up _starving_, no doubt because of the heavenly smells drifting through his apartment, and over the sudden growl of her stomach the first thought to rise is, "of _course_ he cooks; why am I even surprised?"

**#50 – Believe**

She hates to admit that she still gets taken in every time; he grabs her hand and gets that look in his eye, and she can't help listening and really believing that maybe _this_ will be the global domination scheme that works.


End file.
